Tuesday, January 22, 2019

I had hoped people would've stopped talking about that viral video shot near the Lincoln Memorial by now, but I guess faux outrage has a very long shelf life. I still hear people insisting things that didn't happen did. For the record, I don't "support" anyone wearing a MAGA hat -- I just don’t buy into the narrative that the kids were mocking Native American Nathan Phillips. (And even if they were, the entire thing is blown completely out of proportion when you put it into context.) By his own admission, Phillips says he assumed the MAGA boys were starting trouble with the African-American protesters -- who wouldn’t? -- and marched into the middle of their group to "diffuse" the situation where one of his associates opened by saying to them: "Why don't you go back to Europe?" (Great way to diffuse things.) Reminder: It was the Black Hebrew Israelites who were earlier calling the Native Americans "savages" (“Before you became an idol worshipper, you worshiped the true God. And that is why you had your land taken from you because you worship everything except the most high.”) when not belittling women ("Where's your husband?") and calling gay men "faggots." When Phillips never said a word to them and inexplicably started to pound a drum -- and bizarrely singled out that one kid -- the boys did what most people would do, stomp along to the beat. It was odd and extremely uncomfortable -- at one point one of the boys is heard saying "What's going on here?" -- but there’s no there there. It was a misunderstanding that no one should even know about. (Remember when social media was for catching up with old friends, not becoming enraged about things that don't affect you in the slightest?)

That so many people I respect are hanging their hats on this as symbolic of everything wrong in America today has me terrified we are going to let the White House slip away again in 2020. Can't we just write this off as a sociological Yanni vs Laurel situation and move on, or must some of us keep patting ourselves on the backs for seeing something others do not? I suppose that would be a greater comfort when we have no rights left.

UPDATE: No shortage of pushback from my friends. Thought this exchange might be a good way to summarize/end this on a quasi positive note.

Again, I did not see it that way and already allowed for people (rightfully) attacking them for wearing the hats and noted that Phillips is the one who singled out the kid. As for the (irrelevant but since you brought it up) reason they were in Washington, I think reproductive rights are of the utmost importance. But I also understand that the First Amendment allows for others to feel differently and peacefully protest about it, however wrong I think their lobbying efforts are. Why do I feel like if someone were blasting Muslims for coming to D.C. to attend a rally on the Mall you would be the first defend their rights, even though Islam is aggressively hostile toward women, gays and others in many parts of the world? (Are you familiar with a virginity test or female circumcision?) There's no intellectual consistency there --at least I hate all religions equally!

I don't know what a Tomahawk Chant is -- I've heard something about a chop -- but if this is the smoking gun, it's a big stretch in a city that still has the Washington Redskins(!) as its NFL team with the logo emblazoned all over everything. (When people rapidly pat their hand over their mouth and say "ah, ah, ah, ah" is what I know to be racist, and I didn't see anything like that.)

As I've already said, it's time to move on. I respect that you feel the way you do and don't expect to change your mind. But none of us would even know about this if an out-of-context clip that looked really bad hadn't been widely circulated. Find it odd that now that we understand things weren't quite how they seemed, people seem disappointed that they kids weren't as bad as we thought.

To the contrary, maybe there's some hope for when they're adults soon. (See below.) And we should probably address that it's not in their control that they were born in Kentucky or that they were put in a parochial school that would want to attend such a rally. Attached are two items that give me a twinge of optimism that they can do better as adults. Take care.

1 comment:

Keneth in our current cultural narrative- the boys are villains- white, male, Catholic- they can be lynched in social media and what is disturbing even when the story is proved to be false the political correct gestapo will not back down.